Naiyah Ambros is a multi-racial filmmaker from NJ. Most recently, she was a winning finalist of Starz’ first-ever #TakeTheLead Writers’ Intensive for emerging TV writers and the Grand Prize Winner of Screencraft’s 2023 Horror Competition for her feature screenplay Agua de tu Madre, which is inspired by her AfroCuban heritage.

Naiyah’s film, an Agua de tu Madre proof-of-concept, was awarded the Panavision New Filmmaker Grant, earned a finalist spot in the Netflix-sponsored LALIFF Inclusion Fellowship, and recently premiered at the 2024 Pan African Film Festival. In 2023, Naiyah was invited to be a part of the Latino Filmmaker Network’s official Latino Filmmaker House cohort at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and was an Official Selection of Coverfly’s Pitch Week. Previously, Naiyah was a writer + producer of USC’s Provenance, which was awarded "Best Drama Series" by the Television Academy at its College Television Awards. Her other short films have screened at festivals across the country, and her film Grammable was a nominee for "Best Comedy" at New Filmmaker Los Angeles' Best of NFMLA Awards. 

Naiyah is a graduate of the MFA Film Production program at USC's School of Cinematic Arts where she was a recipient of the prestigious George Lucas Family Foundation Scholarship as well as the Award for Women in Directing. She received her undergraduate degrees in Modern Culture & Media and Political Science from Brown University. Before enrolling at USC, Naiyah worked in scripted development where she learned to love collaborative filmmaking. Taking inspiration from her identity as a mixed-race woman, Naiyah loves to tell stories about intersectional characters caught between worlds through genres like horror, suspense, mystery, and crime while always holding on to her trademark dark sense of humor and irony.